Armenian Cultural Days at the Museum Europäischer Kulturen

Description

The places we dream about reveal our feelings. They depict our cultural identity – the one we have chosen and the one we carry within ourselves. What places, whether they be physical or in their minds, do Armenians dream about when they think of Armenia? How do these (at times nightmarish) dreamscapes mould the individual and the ethnic identity? Do all Armenians dream of the same places, regardless of whether they live in the Republic of Armenia or outside of the country, as two-thirds of the approximately ten million ethnic Armenians do?

We will address these questions in performances, lectures, talks and celebrations, presenting the richness and broken history of Armenian culture in Armenia and the diaspora.

Places of longing, emotions and identity are also central to the accompanying exhibition “Dream Places”. For his project terra Armenia, photographer and photojournalist Erol Gurian interviewed people with Armenian roots in various locations in the diaspora, profiled them and photographically captured their dream places in Armenia. His works convey how ethnic identity is created: assembled like bricks – laid from the outside and lived from within – both sides, highly emotional. His images and interview quotations show the fractures between dream and reality. Additional tension is created by their juxtapositioning alongside the dream places of Armenians living in Armenia, who were questioned and photographed by Ani Hovakimyan on location. They prove more often to be real living environments rather than symbolic places.

In cooperation with the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia and members of the Armenian community in Berlin, among others.